Theorizing Racist Ableism in Higher Education

Critical Race Theory, DisCrit, and Racist Nativism

CRT provides a lens to examine race and racism as they intersect with other systems of oppression (Crenshaw et al., 1995; Delgado & Stefancic, 2017). CRT allows us “to understand how a regime of white supremacy and its subordination of people of color have been created and maintained” while recognizing the need to transform racism and other oppressive systems (Crenshaw et al., 1995, p. xiii). DisCrit, a branch of CRT, combines aspects of critical race studies and disability studies. Recognizing the interconnectedness between the two fields, DisCrit is used to “theoriz[e] about the ways in which race, racism, dis/ability, and ableism are built into interactions, procedures, discourses, and institutions” (Annamma et al., 2013, p. 7). Using an intersectional and interdisciplinary lens, DisCrit recognizes the ways in which racism and ableism, in conjunction with other systems of oppression, maintain white supremacy (Annamma et al., 2013).

In my conceptualization of racist ableism, I build on CRT and DisCrit to consider how dominant ideologies regarding race and ability shape the experiences of multiply-marginalized students on college and university campuses. The sixth tenet of DisCrit builds on Harris’s (1993) notion of whiteness as property and recognizes “whiteness and Ability as ‘property’ conferring economic benefits to those who can claim whiteness and/or normalcy” (Annamma et al., 2013, p. 17). Although race and dis/ability are socially constructed, racialized perceptions of ability and capability prevented students in the study from being perceived and recognized as students with dis/abilities. Together, these theories allowed me to examine how Black and Brown students who identified or were labeled as dis/abled navigated and also challenged dominant ideologies that linked race and ability.

Last, I build on Pérez Huber et al.’s (2008) framework of racist nativism. Racist nativism extends CRT and LatCrit to examine the interconnectedness of race and immigration status (Pérez Huber, 2011; Pérez Huber et al., 2008). Racist nativism is defined as:

the assigning of values to real or imagined differences, in order to justify the superiority of the native, who is perceived to be white, over that of the non-native, who is perceived to be People and Immigrants of Color, and thereby defend the right of whites, or the natives, to dominance. (Pérez Huber et al., 2008, p. 43)

Racist nativist discourses construct and institutionalize stereotypical beliefs regarding citizenship that reinforce standard English hegemony and dominance (Pérez Huber, 2011). Pérez Huber and colleagues’ foundational work on this topic was crucial in conceptualizing racist ableism and allowed me to recognize how racialized perceptions of ability subordinate Black and Brown students. Within racist nativism, nativism and citizenship are recognized as social constructs and center the “native” as normalized and the “non-native” as deviant and even dangerous. In theorizing racist ableism, I see parallels between constructions of able-bodiedness and the native, particularly the ways in which able-bodiedness (and able-mindedness) is constructed in relation to whiteness and how the construct of dis/ability is used to oppress Black and Brown communities. Pérez Huber et al.’s (2008) focus on “real or imagined” differences in relation to white and native dominance allowed me to theorize how perceptions of ability, “real or imagined,” were used to maintain ideologies of white supremacy and marginalize students in the study.

Theorizing Racist Ableism

Racist ableism bridges CRT, DisCrit, and racist nativism to describe how particular forms of ableism, informed by racist attitudes and beliefs, oppress and dehumanize Black and Brown people based on actual or perceived (or, inversely, lack of perceived) dis/ability, thereby reinforcing the relationship between whiteness and ability. Racist ableism, as a theoretical and conceptual framework, allows us to consider: (1) the specific ways in which ableism becomes racialized through discourse and to name them; and (2) how constructs of “ability” (white) and “dis/ability” (Other) have been used to disenfranchise and oppress Black and Brown people, while reinforcing “whiteness and Ability as forms of property” (Annamma et al., 2015, p. 24).

Racist ableism is perpetuated through racist ableist discourses that not only reinforce “racialized notions of ability,” but also an ability hegemony (Annamma et al., 2013, p. 15). Pérez Huber (2011) defines racist nativist discourses as “the institutionalized ways people perceive, understand, make sense of the world around us” (p. 382). In order for racist ableism to persist, an ability hegemony must exist that constructs intellectual and mental differences as less than and Othered. This is then used to oppress and dehumanize not only people who identify or have the lived experience of dis/ability (or mental illness), but also other racially marginalized groups who are falsely perceived as intellectually and/or biologically inferior. For example, in California, school segregation of Mexican and Mexican American children was justified through racist ableist discourses that linked race and ability using “terms ranging from poor hygiene to contagious diseases to innate intellectual differences” that pathologized Mexican culture and communities (Moll, 2010, p. 452). Racist ableist discourses, then, not only institutionalize discourses that link race and ability, but also perpetuate a hegemony of ability in which being able-bodied and able-minded are superior to dis/abled bodies and minds, or “bodyminds” (Schalk, 2018). Able-bodied superiority is deeply intertwined with not only racism, but also antiblackness in particular. Baynton (2017) and other scholars have highlighted the ways in which the construct of dis/ability was deployed to uphold slavery and segregation in the United States. During the 1850s, Dr. Samuel Cartwright invented “drapetomania,” a mental illness that caused enslaved people to run away, and “dysaesthesia aechiopis,” which caused free Black people to misbehave (Baynton, 2017; Metzl, 2010; Pickens, 2019). Over a century later, Metzl (2010) identified how schizophrenia was linked to blackness during the civil rights era and used as an oppressive tool to involuntarily detain Black protestors in psychiatric institutions. In these examples, we can understand the ways in which “ableism is formed and informed by antiblackness” and “ableism is uniquely wielded against Black people” (Lewis, 2020, para. 1–2).

Last, racist ableist discourses manifest in the form of microaggressions that perpetuate dominant narratives that link race and ability. The term racial microaggressions was coined by Chester Pierce in the late 1970s to describe the experiences of Black people navigating racism in their day-to-day lives and has since been extended to discuss the experiences of other minoritized groups (Pierce et al., 1978). Pérez Huber and Solórzano (2015) define racial microaggressions as “a form of systemic, everyday racism used to keep those in the racial margins in their place” (p. 298). Research on microaggressions has documented that Black and Brown students navigate “academic microaggressions,” which are “based on overall assumptions that Students of Color are academically inferior [to white students]” (Solórzano et al., 2002, p. 34). These assumptions, although understood as a form of racial microaggressions, are often not understood in relation to ability or ableism, which limits their explanatory power in terms of naming the mechanisms by which race and ability work together to maintain white supremacy. In particular, by failing to discuss how dis/ability is used to disenfranchise and dehumanize Black and Brown people, we allow racist ableism to persist. Both Dávila (2015) and Banks (2017) have used DisCrit as a theoretical framework to examine racism and ableism in K–12 educational contexts. Dávila’s (2015) study examined the experiences of Latina/o students in special education and found that they experienced disability microaggressions in the form of low expectations, disregard, and bullying. Banks’s (2017) study examined the K–12 experiences of African American male college students with learning disabilities. Students in the study recounted navigating “untoward characterizations of their racial and gender identities [which] often undermined their ability to effectively self-advocate for appropriate education services and adequate support in the general education classroom” and navigated deficit attitudes and beliefs about their intellectual ability (Banks, 2017, p. 104). In this article, I extend these conceptualizations of racial microaggressions, particularly the ways in which they are layered, to consider how Black and Brown students in the study experienced microaggressions at the intersections of race and ability. I refer to these as racist ableist microaggressions.

Positionality

I arrived at this topic through my experience working as a direct support person for community college students with dis/abilities and my own experience as a Disabled Chicanx. As a monolingual English speaker placed in an English as a Second Language class, I became keenly aware of how perceptions of race and ability impacted my own educational experiences and my ability to access dis/ability-related supports. Later, while working as a direct support staff, I was exposed to the structural barriers d/Deaf and dis/abled Black and Brown students encountered navigating higher education. These experiences led me to pursuing my doctoral research in a program focused on interdisciplinary and structural analysis of education inequity. As a Disabled student who had never registered for support, I recognized that not all students with dis/abilities chose or were able to register for formal support on their campuses. It is important to note that although I share some social positions with the participants in the study, my experiences differ in significant ways. These include my relationship and access to white privilege as a light-skinned Chicanx and my years of formal schooling.

Participants

Participants were recruited through a variety of methods including email outreach, posters, in-class presentations, and snowball sampling techniques. Because I was interested in students who were and were not registered with disability resource centers (DRCs), I contacted cultural centers to circulate my recruitment letter to identify participants who may have the lived experience of disability but chose not to or were unable to register for formal dis/ability support on their campus. Twenty-three students participated in the qualitative survey portion of the study, and 10 of these participants met with me for informal, semistructured interviews in person or via Zoom. Of these 10 participants (see Table 1), four identified as Black or biracial, four identified as Asian/Asian American or Pacific Islander, and two identified as non-Black Latinx. Seven of the participants were women, two were male, and one was nonbinary. Although six participants had registered for disability services on campus, not all participants utilized accommodations offered to them. Many participants identified as having more than one dis/ability. Seven of the participants attended public colleges or universities, two attended a private university, and one attended a private, Christian college.

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Table 1.

Research Participants.

Participant	Age	Disability	Race/Ethnicity	University/College	Registered with DRC
Tiffany	27	Traumatic brain injury	Black or African American	Public	Yes
Baudelaire	21	Half deaf or deaf	Mexican American	Public	Yes
Susana	23	Major depressive disorder; general anxiety disorder	Filipina	Public	Yes
Bea	21	Type 1 Diabetes	Latina; Mexican Guatemalan	Public	No
Alex	21	Depression; anxiety	Asian; Asian American Korean	Private	No
Micah	20	Chronic allergies/illness; Tourette’s syndrome	Indian	Private	Yes
Rodrigo	34	Head trauma; PTSD; tinnitus; hearing impaired	Korean	Public	Yes
Marisol	34	Physical and mental	Afro-Latina (Black-Mexican)	Public	Yes
Kennedy	19	Cognitive processing disorder	African American	Private, Christian	No
Andrea	29	General anxiety; depression; adjustment disorder	Guatemalan/Black or African American	Public	No

Data Collection

I collected data through two methods: (1) an online qualitative questionnaire on SurveyMonkey, and (2) two 60- to 90-minute informal, in-depth interviews. The questionnaire contained 18 questions and allowed me to collect data on the experiences of students who did not want to meet for interviews as well as identify students who were interested in meeting for interviews. The survey included demographic questions as well as questions about their experiences on their four-year campus such as: “How comfortable do you feel requesting accommodations or modifications from professors?” and “How would you describe your interactions with peers on campus?” As a method, qualitative surveying allowed me to develop description “breadth” of students’ experiences, which involved “trying to find out something about every topic the research touches on” (Becker, 1996, p. 65). Twenty-three people responded to the survey, and 14 questionnaire respondents indicated that they were interested in participating in the interview phase of the study. I contacted all 14 students, but only 10 of these students were available to meet with me in person or virtually. I offered flexibility in the interview process whenever possible. For this reason, I met with one participant over Zoom (an online audiovisual platform) while they commuted, one participant for a single interview, and another participant for three interviews.

My semistructured interview protocol was modeled around Seidman’s (2006) three-step series, which highlights contextualizing people’s experiences with phenomena in their lived experiences and understanding the meaning they assign to those experiences. Rather than meeting with research participants three times, I met with the majority of participants twice. In the first interview, I asked students about their experiences in K–12 education (and other educational experiences upon arriving to their four-year college such as community college), using questions such as: “What schools did you attend when you were growing up? What was your elementary school experience like?” and “When were you first diagnosed as having a disability or disabilities?” (The latter differed depending on when a student was diagnosed including self-diagnosis.) The second interview focused on their experiences at their current four-year colleges and included questions such as: “Did you register with the disability services office? Tell me about that” and “Whether you are registered with the disability services office or not, how comfortable do you feel speaking to professors or teaching assistants regarding the nature of your disability?”

Data Analysis

Data were collected as part of a larger dissertation study that examined the experiences of undergraduate Black and Brown students labeled or who identified as having a dis/ability. Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed with consent from participants. Names and other identifying information have been changed to pseudonyms or omitted. Data were systematically coded for emergent themes following Harding’s (2013) four-step process of coding. Thematic analysis allowed me to identify, organize, and make sense of patterns in the data (Braun & Clarke, 2012). Rather than a linear process, data collection was iterative, or a “loop” (Bassett, 2010, p. 504), which allowed me to analyze data and generate theory while simultaneously collecting interview and survey data. Interview data were coded first, and these codes were later examined in relation to the survey responses as secondary. After transcribing interviews, I read and re-read the interview transcripts multiple times. I compiled a preliminary codebook using open coding, which consisted of broad, overarching categories (experiences with disability resource centers, experiences with professors), a priori codes based on the literature (racial microaggressions, stereotype threat), and emergent codes (not being believed, being perceived as less smart or capable). After finishing my preliminary codebook, I uploaded my transcripts and codebook onto Dedoose software where I continued to condense and refine my categories into thematic “chunks” (Rossman & Rallis, 1998). Last, I identified patterns and themes and selected findings based on: (1) commonalities, differences, and relationships; and (2) their relevance to my research study.

To check for credibility, I used triangulation, member checking, and a methodological journal. Triangulation refers to the “process of using multiple perceptions to clarify meaning, verifying the repeatability of an observation or interpretation” (Stake, 2005, p. 454). The qualitative questionnaire functioned as a secondary source of data and allowed me to check for consistency. Second, I used member-checking, which acts as “a quality control process by which a researcher seeks to improve the accuracy, credibility and validity of what has been recorded during a research interview” (Harper & Cole, 2012, p. 1). Participants had the option to review their transcripts. Last, I kept a methodological journal, which helped me “step back” and “take a fresh analytic look” (Charmaz, 2014, p. 167). This allowed me to engage in reflective practice by recording my thoughts and perspectives through data collection and analysis.

Black and Brown Dis/abled Students Navigated Racialized Perceptions of Intelligence, Productivity, and Academic Capability

Black and Brown dis/abled students in the study navigated racialized perceptions of intelligence, productivity, and academic capability that often minimized and erased their lived experiences with dis/abilities. Said differently, students did not encounter ableism on the basis of their specific diagnostic labels or dis/abilities, but, rather, racist notions about the capabilities and abilities of Black and Brown students. This is similar to the findings in Banks’s (2017) study of African American students with learning dis/abilities in K–12 educational contexts who:

. . .spoke extensively about the need to invalidate derogatory academic mischaracterizations in order to prove themselves as intellectually proficient or as students who were capable of competing with other students of color without disabilities and [w]hite peers in the general education classroom. (p. 103)

As Bailey and Mobley (2019) explain, “Race—and specifically Blackness—has been used to mark disability, while disability has inherently ‘Blackened’ those perceived as unfit. Black people were—and continue to be—assumed intellectually disabled precisely because of race” (p. 6). For students in the present study, this reinforced not only a racial hierarchy, but also an ability hegemony in which intellectual and other ability differences were perceived as being less than. Whereas Black and biracial students recounted being perceived as less smart or capable, Asian Pacific Islander and Desi-American (APIDA) students were positioned as hyperintelligent and hypercapable through the model minority myth, which minimized and erased their lived experiences with dis/ability (Lee, 1994; Poon-McBrayer, 2011). Students’ counternarratives revealed how racist ableist discourses shaped their experiences forming study groups, registering with DRCs, and navigating faculty–student interactions.

Marisol, a biracial Black and Mexican student with multiple dis/abilities, encountered numerous barriers registering with her campus’s DRC. DRCs are “offices that serve students with disabilities primarily focus[ed] on academic accessibility and accommodations, as mandated by legislation such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973” (Chiang, 2020, p. 1184). Many DRCs require students to provide proof of disability from a doctor or other professional before they can access accommodations (Dolmage, 2017; Evans et al., 2017; Karpicz, 2020; Kerschbaum et al., 2017; Zehner, 2018). Marisol had access to documentation and had previously qualified for support at her two-year college, but it was rejected by DRC staff at her four-year college and her request for services was denied. The DRC on campus required that Marisol obtain medical documentation. Marisol shared that she returned multiple times with different dis/abilities documented only to be approved for temporary accommodations.

I felt like [the DRC staff] didn’t believe me.. . . ‘Cause I feel like people take it—I mean once again I feel like I-I-I hate to pull the race card out, but I pull it out because I feel like sometimes it’s necessary. I feel like we’re so, uh, profiled at —. I’m half-Black half-Mexican, you know, and I just feel like sometimes we’re just viewed completely different in whatever resources aren’t allocated as they should be. My dollar is just as good as your dollar. I don’t care what color you are. You know, you can’t sit here and judge me based on what I say in my disability and think I’m just an illiterate, you know, biracial person or “illiterate Mexican” when, you know, my mom has a degree, and like all other than myself and my little sister are the only ones, they all have PhD degrees.

Marisol’s counternarrative reveals how she navigated deficit perceptions of Mexican and biracial people as being less intelligent that circumvented her ability to register as a student with a dis/ability on campus. Research on racial microaggressions has documented that Black and Latinx students with and without dis/abilities navigate lowered expectations, have their academic merit questioned, and are falsely perceived as intellectually inferior (Banks, 2017; Dávila, 2015; Solórzano et al., 2002; Yosso et al., 2009). Yosso et al. (2009), in their study of incidents of racial microaggressions experienced by Latina/o undergraduate students, found that they navigated racial microaggressions in which their academic merit was doubted and “their intelligence has been called into question” (p. 667). I argue that these were racist ableist microaggressions that link race and ability. DRC staff, who provide support to students with dis/abilities, acted as gatekeepers—restricting Marisol’s access to supports mandated through legislation such as the Americans with Disabilities Act and ignoring the hurdles many Black and Brown students have to navigate in order to obtain documentation to register for services. These include structural barriers such as inequitable access to health care and quality doctors as well as systemic racism in diagnosis and treatment (Feagin & Bennefield, 2014; Mays et al., 2007; Nicolaidis et al., 2010; Velasco-Mondragon et al., 2016). Marisol shared:

I broke down like, “Look, this is just too much for me and if you guys can’t accommodate, I totally understand, I’m out of here.” Cause I just—I felt like I had no voice like “Who’s gonna help me out here?” like I’m struggling. I-I mean I don’t want the red carpet treatment but I’m looking for somebody to help me out so I don’t quit, I mean I’ve come this far.

Ultimately, although Marisol also recognized and pushed back against deficit perceptions of race and ability by sharing the history of graduate education in her own family, these interactions caused her distress culminating in her having a breakdown in the DRC office and considering leaving the institution toward the end of her first term.

Tiffany, a Black student with a traumatic brain injury (TBI), shared how she navigated racialized perceptions of her speech that impacted her ability to form study groups with peers. Tiffany became dis/abled as an adult following a car accident. She spoke slowly and her use of retainers sometimes caused her to slur her words. Although Tiffany was a STEM major and had been in honors and advanced placement classes in high school, she endured racist perceptions of her academic capabilities in high school and later at her four-year college. These interactions led to Tiffany feeling isolated and alienated by her peers.

But, yeah, yep, they would perceive me as “ghetto” and they would think that I’m this. . .you know “ghetto” person who doesn’t know how to act or conduct herself, you know? Like. . .the way that I talk, you know, back then [in high school] it was the way that I talk because like I have like slang, but now that’s the way that I talk because, like, not because of my um retainers—because my speech isn’t that clear—so they don’t wanna like have a conversation with me. They don’t wanna converse with me because they feel like. . .you know?. . .Um. . .so like we’ll be in like a group setting and then this just happened a few hours ago, we’re in a group, and like we’re like talking about, the questions, you know? And, it’s—I wouldn’t say they ignored me, but. . .they would not really—they act like they didn’t hear me. That is ignoring but. . .um. . .either (a) they really don’t understand me or (b) they don’t want to understand me. Either (a) they don’t understand me or (b) they don’t want to understand me, like they don’t want to hear me. Like, not that they don’t understand what I’m saying, but they’ve already built up this—I keep pausing because I feel like I’m getting super philosophical poetic, but um they’ve already built up this like. . .barrier, so they’re—they don’t see me, they don’t hear me, you know?

Tiffany’s interactions with peers reveal the ways in which microaggressions are “layered,” or intersectional (Pérez Huber & Solórzano, 2015, p. 298). Intersectionality is used to describe the ways in which “power relations of race, class, and gender. . .are not discrete and mutually exclusive entities, but rather build on each other and work together, and that, while often invisible, these intersecting power relations affect all aspects of the social world” (Collins & Bilge, 2016, p. 4). Tiffany’s counternarrative is similar to findings in Yosso et al. (2009) regarding interpersonal racial microaggressions experienced by a Latina student who experienced similar rejection from peers when trying to join study groups. The student in their study interpreted these exchanges as “based on assumptions about her academic merit” (Yosso et al., 2009, p. 667). When I asked Tiffany what she believed the “barrier” was, she elaborated: “My speech, who I am, a Black girl, you know?” Bailey and Mobley (2019) argue that “Black people [are] assumed intellectually disabled precisely because of race” and “Blackness has been consistently linked with lack and subhuman status” (p. 6). Tiffany’s counternarrative highlights the ways in which race and dis/ability were interconnected—specifically, blackness, speech, and intelligence.

Andrea, a biracial Black and Guatemalan student with generalized anxiety, depression, and adjustment disorder, explained how she simultaneously had to navigate being “excellent” to counter antiblackness while also struggling in school.

Um so growing up as a Black person, not even just being female, but as a Black person you hear, you have to be better. Like whatever you do, you have to do better. And it comes from this notion that to attain whiteness is to succeed because you’re like passing like, they will see you for your brains rather than for your skin color. . .but growing up, like hearing my dad constantly tout, like, “You have to be better, like, you have to” and in a lot of ways I did, like, I did have to have the grades. I did have to suppress because if I didn’t do more, like, it wasn’t okay to be average. And I was an average student realistically, but because I was Black, like, being average was being excellent because I wasn’t supposed to even be average.

Andrea’s counternarrative reveals not only the ways in which students navigated and resisted racist ableism by being excellent, but also the ways in which racist ableist discourses required her to “prove them wrong” (Dávila, 2015), or disrupt perceptions that “People of Color are less intelligent and less capable than others” by “prov[ing] that students of color can and do succeed” (Sólorzano et al., 2002, p. 42). This strategy was deployed by students in Dávila’s (2015) study in the form of refusing special education services to counter deficit perceptions of Latinx students with learning dis/abilities.

APIDA students in the study also navigated racialized perceptions of ability. Rather than encountering perceptions that they were academically incapable, however, they were positioned as hyperintelligent and hypercapable, which minimized and erased their lived realities navigating dis/ability. As Poon-McBrayer (2011) explains, “as a group, Asian immigrants and Asian Americans have been quickly idealized as a hardworking, successful, and law-abiding ethnic minority which has overcome discrimination, adversity, and oppression to achieve great success” (p. 152). All four APIDA students in the study discussed the model minority myth in the context of Asian racialization and the challenges it presented for them. The model minority myth perpetuates the stereotype that “Asian Americans are successful in school because they work hard and come from cultures that believe in the value of education” (Lee, 1994, p. 413) and “are able to make it on their own without special assistance” (Ngo & Lee, 2007, p. 415). Rodrigo, a Korean student and veteran who became dis/abled from his service, explained how racialized perceptions of Asian students’ academic abilities impacted him.

It really feels like my expectations are set higher because I’m Asian and I must know math. Look at the stereotypes of like Asians like, you know, that that one meme with that old Asian guy like-like um, uh, you get I don’t know there there’s always puns, you know, something about like, “Oh, you got a B. Why not an A?” or, like, like, um, yeah, I don’t know, like, I can’t think of one off the top of my head, but there’s always these expectations that Asians are supposed to excel in education.

Rodrigo’s explanation of the model minority myth and how it resulted in higher expectations for him suggest that APIDA students experience erasure of their lived experiences with dis/ability through racist ableist discourses that position students as hyperintelligent. Rodrigo often had to miss class because of migraines and had registered for services on campus but stopped using them because he feared being “outed,” did not want to experience judgement and disrespect, and did not receive access to the types of accommodations he needed. This is similar to findings in Dávila’s (2015) study in which Latinx students made “strategic decisions to refuse special education services” and “resistance to structural aggressions. . .which can be perceived as ‘outing’ a student’s disability status” (p. 457). Unlike Latinx students, however, APIDA students contended with high rather than low expectations, which erased their lived experiences with dis/ability. As Poon-McBrayer (2011) argues in relation to double jeopardy experienced among Asian students with dis/abilities in the United States, “the model minority stereotype has further jeopardized their opportunities for equitable education when learning difficulties are present” (p. 155). Rodrigo’s experience with the model minority myth was echoed by Micah, an Indian student with chronic food allergies/illness and Tourette’s syndrome, as well. They shared how the model minority myth and respectability politics erased their lived experiences with dis/ability.

The East Asian and also South Asian, Asian in general, model minority stereotype is very, very true for me growing up my entire life. I had teachers who, because I was Indian, assumed that I was good at science, and that I was smart, specifically. . .. And like, my allergies, again, so, not only something my parents reinforced that, like they were already reducing them. “Everybody has problems.” My teachers did that too. “You just have some problems, you’ll get over it, just keep doing what you’re doing,” you know?

It was not until college that Rodrigo and Micah began to unpack the impact the model minority myth had on their education. Micah, and the other three APIDA students in the study, shared how perceptions of APIDA students as smart resulted in them internalizing ableism. This led to students not seeking out support because they did not want to be pathologized, experiencing a sense of imposter syndrome, or perceiving their access needs as insufficient compared to other students.

Racist ableist discourses simultaneously positioned non-APIDA Black and Brown students as less intelligent, capable, and productive, while reinforcing the model minority myth for APIDA students. Whereas scholars such as Abes and Wallace (2020) build on crip theory to argue that “compulsory able-bodiedness and able-mindedness are the dominant discourses that push people toward an unobtainable normalcy, determining who is disabled and therefore less worthy” and maintain “the dominant discourses of able-bodiedness and able-mindedness show up as ableist expectations of higher education” (Abes & Wallace, 2020, p. 576), I argue that because ability functioned as a property of whiteness (Annamma et al., 2013), Black and Brown students instead navigated racist ableism in which racialization and racism already positioned them as non-normative. As Annamma et al. (2013) explain, “without racialized notions of ability, racial difference would simply be racial difference. Because racial difference has been explicitly linked with an intellectual hierarchy, however, racial differences take on additional weight” (p. 15). For students in the study, this “additional weight” manifested in the form of racist ableism based on racialized perceptions of ability rather than their actual dis/ability diagnoses or labels.

Black and Brown Dis/abled Students were Pathologized as Lazy and/or Deviant, which Minimized and Erased their Access Needs

Students’ counternarratives revealed how they were pathologized as lazy and deviant in the forms of trying to game the system, “cheating,” or “getting over on dis/ability.” Black and Brown students who identified as or were labeled as dis/abled navigated and internalized perceptions that they were unworthy or undeserving of institutional support, which mitigated and restricted their ability to access accommodations. Karpicz (2020), in her study of self-advocacy among dis/abled Students of Color, found that students “often had to engage in greater degrees of self-disclosure than their white, disabled peers before they were able to get their access needs met” (p. 152). Within a racist ableism framework, dis/ability (and ability) are based on perceptions and not students’ actual lived experiences with dis/ability. The pathologization of Black and Brown students in the present study as lazy and/or deviant minimized their actual and real access needs and their lived experiences with dis/ability on campus.

Andrea explained how she experienced racist ableist microaggressions in the K–12 education system prior to receiving a formal diagnosis. Andrea recounted an experience she had with a science teacher in middle school that “would pick on [her] like no one’s fucking business.”

And it’s like, well, there are reasons why I wasn’t completing assignments and I didn’t want to like the anxiety is there every time I don’t turn something in or turn it halfway. Or you see like one problem that’s on the page that I have tried to work out. But like, you say that I gave up because I’m lazy—like no, I just I don’t understand it. So yeah, a lot of it was automatically defaulted as laziness, which I think has a racial prejudice to it like yeah, I sense a tinge of racism there. Like Black people, Black students are lazy. So, there’s that. I’m just gonna say that. I’m gonna say it’s racist.

Andrea’s teacher (mis)perceived her late and incomplete work as an indicator of laziness, which she interprets as rooted in racist beliefs that Black students are lazy. Research on racial microaggressions and racism has documented that Black students navigate perceptions of laziness in educational contexts (Allen, 2010; Sanders, 1997). For Andrea, she explains that this minimized that she was struggling academically and dismissed the possibility that she could have a learning dis/ability. She continues:

But math and sciences were always really hard. . . I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, but it was never like, “Oh, well, let’s get her assessed for like, dyslexia,” like it was never that was never an option because like, “Well she does so well in these other classes. . ..” It was really difficult to kind of in one in one space here like your writing is really good and then hearing like, “You’re fucking like lazy and like look dumb.”

She continued to navigate racist ableist microaggressions in college:

But I would always show up to class late, always, like 12 in the afternoon. Easy, could have gone up to 10. And like, just gotten class, I would always be late, like 10 minutes. . . and just always late. And I remember one of the, like, maybe two semesters ago, she shared an office with another professor that I had and this professor. . .was—I had that rhetoric class with and I shared with her I was like, “Hey, so I know that I show up late a lot, but I have really bad anxiety and it’s very hard for me to like function. Sort of in the mornings, I kind of have to calm myself down and like, get out of bed”—about why—she’s like, “Well, why don’t you allow yourself more time in the morning? To be able to have that.” Like, “Mmm that’s depression? Yeah, no, we’re just not gonna go there.” So, I just like would let her know. She’s like, “Well, are you filed with the disabilities office and I can accommodate that for you?” And I was like, “No.” So, that’s when it started to like, be very apparent to me that without the disabilities office backing teachers just don’t believe you. They think you’re just like fucking lazy and late. And I just did not want to go through all of the like hassle of going through the disabilities office and like just last minute, like, I just didn’t want to do all that.

Not only did Andrea continue to endure (mis)perceptions that she was lazy in college, her professor would only accommodate her if she was institutionally recognized as having a dis/ability. Andrea’s observation about needing “institutional backing” of her dis/ability reveals the ways in which students in the study were not positioned as experts of their own lived experiences or knowledgeable about their own access needs. Andrea’s lived experience was discounted as valid knowledge, and racist ableist discourses mischaracterized her lateness as laziness—minimizing her lived experience with dis/ability.

Many participants perceived themselves as having an invisible dis/ability, or not “looking” visibly dis/abled. Mullins and Preyde (2013) define invisible dis/abilities as “an umbrella term to refer to disabilities that interfere with day-to-day functioning but do not have a physical manifestation” (p. 148). Although students with invisible dis/abilities encounter unique barriers, much less is understood about the experiences of multiply-marginalized students with invisible dis/abilities. Scholars have argued that “racism is most often expressed in covert ways” today rather than “overt racist acts” (Minikel-Lacocque, 2013, p. 435). Research on racial microaggressions has found that Black and Brown students navigate perceptions that they do not belong on campus or were admitted to the institution because of affirmative action policies (Minikel-Lacocque, 2013; Solórzano et al., 2000). The latter perpetuates the myth of meritocracy, which “represents the belief that we all, regardless of race, gender, or socioeconomic background, are afforded the same chances for success” (Minikel-Lacocque, 2013, p. 452). Students in the study discussed not only how the invisibility of their diagnosis or dis/ability impacted their ability to access supports either formally through the DRC or informally through a professor, but also the ways in which their motives for doing so were characterized as laziness, gaming the system, or to benefit themselves. While discussing her interactions with the DRC, Marisol explained how the invisibility of her dis/ability impacted her interactions with staff.

I feel like either I give this perception that maybe I am just lazy or maybe I just don’t have a disability cause it’s not visible to the naked eye or I-I I’m just taking advantage of the system and that’s the part that really just drives me nuts cause it’s like, if you guys only realized what I do deal with, or what I do struggle with, then you would kind of see it from a different perspective. And it’s not like I don’t ask for help. If I didn’t ask for help and I was always quiet, then—even then I still don’t feel that’s a fair reason, but needless to say I feel like it’s still just judgement all the time.

Marisol’s counternarrative reveals the racialized realities of Black and Brown students with dis/abilities—particularly the ways in which they contend with discourses of “taking advantage of the system”—that minimized their struggles in higher education.

This experience was not unique to Marisol. Tiffany felt similarly that DRC staff on her campus did not believe she had a dis/ability. Like Marisol, Tiffany encountered numerous barriers to accessing accommodations from DRC. Tiffany’s interactions with the DRC expose the unique barriers Black and Brown students encounter accessing accommodations and other support. These racialized perceptions made it difficult for students in the study to advocate for their access needs without encountering resistance or hostility from staff or faculty. This is similar to Banks’s (2017) findings regarding African American male students with dis/abilities that “participants also expressed that untoward characterizations of their racial and gender identities often undermined their ability to effectively self-advocate for appropriate education services and adequate support in the general education classroom” (p. 104). Tiffany interpreted her exchanges with the DRC as being based on assumptions that she was able-bodied because she did not look dis/abled:

I think it’s because like [the disability resource center] thought I was cheating, like, I didn’t deserve to be given the extra amount of time, or, you know? Like, ‘cause you look at me and you don’t think I’m—nothing’s wrong unless you see me walking or my hear me talking—hear me talking you might think but just at face value, like, just looking at me you don’t think that I’m disabled, so they think like she’s, you know, getting over on disability, you know?

Both Tiffany’s and Marisol’s counternarratives reveal not only the racialized barriers Black and Brown students encounter seeking support, but also the racist ableism they experienced as a result. Tiffany’s observation that she was perceived as “cheating” or “getting over on dis/ability” highlights the ways in which students’ access needs were discredited and their lived experiences delegitimized through racist ableist discourses.

Kennedy, an African American student with cognitive processing disorder at a private, Christian college, shared an experience she had with a professor on campus. Although Kennedy had been in special education during elementary and middle school, she had advocated to be placed in mainstream classes for high school and had not received services since. Kennedy shared an encounter she had with a professor after doing poorly on an exam. During that interaction, she shared that she had a learning dis/ability. In the academic literature, sharing or disclosing disability is often regarded as an effective self-advocacy strategy for students (Barnard-Brak et al., 2010; Karpicz, 2020; Terras et al., 2015). However, Kennedy’s counternarrative reveals that disclosing her dis/ability exposed her to scrutinization:

I think from her standpoint. . .it was maybe like, she was thinking that I was trying to find a cover as to why I did so bad or trying to find a cover for, like, oh, maybe I wanted to retake the test or something like that. And that was definitely not the case. I went in there so I could understand, like, so, how do I move forward to do better on your tests next time? And I think instantly, she just thought like, I’m just trying to make something up. And just to like, benefit me or I guess like pity myself.

Kennedy encountered racist ableist microaggressions in which her self-advocacy was perceived as “trying to find a cover,” “making something up,” or to “benefit” or gain “pity” from her professor. Students’ counternarratives reveal the ways in which racist ableist discourses justified the increased scrutinization and pathologization of Black and Brown students in the study. Racialized (mis)perceptions that students in the study were lazy, trying to game the system, or benefit themselves minimized their real and actual access needs—further disenfranchising them—while erasing the additional barriers Black and Brown people navigate to obtain formal diagnoses (Ben-Moshe & Magaña, 2014; Feagin & Bennefield, 2014; Magaña et al., 2012). In Karpicz’s (2020) study of dis/abled graduate Students of Color, two participants “spoke about hostile interactions in clinical settings” in which one participant discussed “being refused treatment for her chronic pain” and another was misdiagnosed (p. 151). One survey participant, a Black female student who had severe migraines, explained how she did not have access to doctors who believed her, which prevented her from obtaining medical documentation to register for services:

No, I am not registered [with the disability resource center], but [I] tried to more recently. However, since I do not have enough doctors taking my condition seriously, I did not have all of the documentation to prove that my migraines actually have the effect that I say they have. I met a doctor who believed me and diagnosed me. I was sent to a neurologist who also believes me. However, I still need further testing to determine what I am dealing with and get registered.

This student’s experience mirrors a trend that is not uncommon for Black people, particularly Black women, who encounter racist and false beliefs about their ability to tolerate pain and numerous barriers to diagnosis (Anderson et al., 2009; Hoffman et al., 2016; Nicolaidis et al., 2010; Todd et al., 2000). As Bailey and Mobley (2019) explain, “Black people are afforded the curious task of being simultaneously hyper-able-bodied and disabled, while at the same time being locked into ideologies that figure us as both superhumanly strong and pathologically inept” (p. 6). Said differently, although research shows that Black and Brown people, and women in particular, encounter numerous barriers to receiving a diagnosis, Black and biracial (Black and Latina) students in the study were mischaracterized as lazy or deviant.

Bea, a Latina student with type 1 diabetes, also encountered disbelief from a professor when she needed to miss class for a medical appointment. In her survey response, prior to our interviews, Bea explained how she “encountered people [on campus that] perceive [her] as ‘ghetto,’ violent, uneducated, and incapable of articulating a scholarly argument.” Bea, who was not registered with the DRC, explained how she missed class at least once a term to travel to a nearby city where her MediCal is accepted.

“Oh, by the way, like I have an endocrinologist appointment,” and they’re like, “Why didn’t you talk to me about this in the beginning of the quarter?” Or like, “Are you registered with the students, like, services thing, whatever?” And it’s like, “No, like, I can provide you a like, uh, note if you’d like they’d be like, yeah. And I remember there was, I forgot what class I was taking and there was one specific professor, he was just not having it and he was like, well I don’t believe you. . .. It’s like, “Well, then I’ll provide you the necessary information.” . . .And the thing is like the thing about me, which is really bad, like I’ll like, I can get like a really aggressive tone and I remember like the professor that told what class was he? I took a couple of, I think, it was in the anthropology department and I was like, “Alright, that’s fine. Well, I’ll just go ahead and not be in your class and [my endocrinologist’s office] will go ahead and email you the proof of like me not being in class,” like medical, you know, and I read, like, he wasn’t, he wasn’t very appreciative of my tone and I was like, “I guess it was just another fight. I will not be in your class out of respect.” And then like, I walked away, thank you. Walk away. . . Like I was like, “your rude ass,” but, yeah, that’s it.

Although Bea did not have formal accommodations, there was a departmental policy that allowed her to submit a doctor’s note for excused absences. Bea’s exchange reveals not only how she was perceived as untrustworthy by her professor and undeserving of having her absence excused, but also that her self-advocacy was received as hostility by her professor.

Tiffany recounted a similar experience with self-advocacy she had with Adam, a DRC staff member on her campus that she had previous interactions with, and other workers in the DRC office. While she was talking to a staff member in the front office, she saw Adam and approached him:

. . .one time, actually, [I] walked in on [Adam] wal-leaving out [the resource center] and I don’t know if he was going to the bathroom or something, but I was just like, “I need to talk to you so I can figure out- figure out how I’m going to get this accommodation because the test is such and such a date and we’re close to the deadline” and, like, everybody in the office were more concerned with, like, “Are you OK, Adam?” I know that’s me being—it sounds like I’m being inconsiderate ‘cause I know he’s disabled as well, but it’s like how do I get my accommodations without being overbearing, you know? I know that it matters that he—like—that they have to protect him but I don’t know. It’s just weird like I’m not a beast. I’m just asking for my story held-heard. I was already talking to him so I don’t know.

Tiffany’s use of “protect” to refer to Adam, a white person who uses a wheelchair, and “beast” to describe how she was being positioned by DRC staff reveal the ways in which Tiffany was pathologized as aggressive rather than recognizing her multiple visits to DRC to have her access needs met as a form of self-advocacy. This is similar to findings by Banks (2017), who observed that school personnel and teachers “perceived acts of self-advocacy [by African American male students with dis/abilities] as major disturbances to the classroom” (p. 104). Research on racial microaggressions has also found that Black women navigate the “angry Black woman” stereotype “which portrays Black women as hostile and aggressive” (Jones, 2021, p. 10). It also reflects larger racist ableist discourses that pathologize and criminalize Black students with and without dis/abilities as dangerous (Annamma, 2016, 2017; Banks, 2015).

Students described the ways in which their intentions and motives for accessing support were scrutinized by faculty and staff on campus. Racist ableist microaggressions occurred when students were perceived as “getting over” on dis/ability or taking advantage of the system, or when they encountered disbelief about their lived experiences with dis/ability from faculty and staff on campus. The sixth tenet of DisCrit argues that ability, like whiteness, is a form of property (Annamma et al., 2013). Racist ableist discourses maintain ability as a form of property through a resource distribution model that privileges and validates some lived experiences while delegitimizing and invalidating others. Said differently, students who “lack[ed] a ‘proper’ read (read: medically acceptable, doctor-provided, and insurer-approved) diagnosis for their symptoms” are not afforded the same access to accommodations on campus (Kafer, 2013, p. 12). Moreover, as the counternarratives of students in the present study reveal, even when students did provide this documentation, they encountered disbelief or disregard from faculty and staff and their self-advocacy was read as hostility.

Black and Brown Dis/abled Students Resisted Racist Ableist Discourses

Students in the study resisted racist ableist discourses by positioning themselves as knowledge-holders and disrupting perceptions that DRC staff or professors were more knowledgeable than themselves. For example, in the first finding, I discussed how Marisol pushed back on notions that Mexican people were “illiterate” by asserting that her family had a history of academic excellence. Students also disrupted perceptions of dis/ability as individual, and recognized the interconnectedness of structural violence and experiences with dis/ability. As Puar (2017) explains, “In working poor and working-class communities of color, disabilities and debilities are not non-normative, even if the capacitizing use of the category disabled may be tenuous and the reign of ableism is a constitutive facet” (p. 16). In other words, dis/ability was not perceived as individual, but recognized as a shared experience due to systemic oppression, colonialism, and white supremacy.

One strategy students used to counter racist ableist microaggressions was to position themselves as knowledge-holders, or “bosses of [their] own bodyminds” (Piepzna-Samarasinha, 2018, p. 145). Both Marisol and Tiffany rejected the DRC and faculty as authorities of dis/ability and their lived experiences. For example, Marisol questioned the legitimacy of DRC staff in determining what a dis/ability was (and was not):

So, I made an appointment and that was with one of the advisors, the intake advisors, and just when I went to check in, she was very rude, the girl at the front, but when meeting with [the intake advisor], I brought all my paperwork and to him. It was, like, not sufficient in his book like, “Well, this is not much of a disability.” I’m like, “Well, how—I mean to me I felt like—who the hell are you going to tell me what a disability is or not because you work here?”

Marisol challenged the authority of DRC staff as experts of dis/ability and the legitimacy granted to them because of their role in “function[ing] as an institutional compliance mechanism for federal regulations” (Evans et al., 2017, p. 360). Tiffany also resisted DRC being experts and positioned herself as knowledgeable about her access needs. She explained:

Well, um first of all, it was—it was weird and it was annoying because I feel like I literally had to like—sorry not—I kinda feel like I’m still having to fight them because they don’t believe that I’m disabled, like, and I went to my doctor and I got, you know, documentation, and to say that I was disabled, but their criteria was not clearly stated on the document so when I took it to my doctor she put um it was not affected moderately or severely—and I’m not severely affected in any way—however, my writing is severely affected and there was no way for her to translate that on the testing um accommodation sheet so when I got back to the [DRC], the [my campus’s Disability Resource Center], um, they-they took it as me not being disabled and so they would give me only so much time to do my test, like, you know? Or they would only give me so many accommodations and I’m just like, “What are you doing? I’m really disabled. I’m not acting like this.” Like, if I wrote fast, if I could move fast, I would not need y’all, I promise. Like I’m not trying to get a free ride, you know?

Tiffany and Marisol actively opposed the idea that DRC staff were more knowledgeable than themselves and pushed back against racist ableist discourses—positioning themselves as “holders and creators of knowledge” and having unique critical race-disabled epistemologies (Bernal, 2002, p. 107). Critical race-disabled epistemologies build on Bernal’s (2002) notion of critical raced-gendered epistemologies, which refers to the “unique ways of knowing and understanding the world based on the various raced and gendered experiences of people of color” (p. 107). Similarly, Black and Brown students with dis/abilities also “have unique ways of knowing and understanding the world” based on their raced and dis/abled experiences.

Students also resisted individualistic and deficit notions of dis/ability, which countered the ways in which whiteness centers dis/ability as pathology and instead recognized their experiences as interconnected to white supremacy and settler colonialism. It is important to recognize that DRCs are not only physical places, but also represent particular ideologies surrounding dis/ability and ability in much the same way scholars and prison abolitionists have recognized that prisons represent carceral logics and ideologies that extend beyond carceral locales such as prisons (Ben-Moshe, 2020; Davis, 2016; Hines et al., 2018). Students in the study recognized the ways in which dis/ability and trauma were interconnected and cyclical, which countered ideological perspectives that dis/ability was individual and static. This allowed students to disrupt racist ableist discourses that individualized and pathologized their lived experiences and instead allowed them to locate their experiences within larger systems of oppression.

Tiffany explained how her family history of navigating mental health was a form of “generational strength” that allowed her to persist and gave her strength. She explained:

From where I was raised and, you know, my m- I would- I wouldn’t strongly say that it’s a genetic trait that you have, but I would say that genetically like my mom, my grandma, yeah. . .but my mom, who gave me away, she was actually given away too. So, it was actually like a generational—and like, my grandma, who gave my mom away, she actually faces mental um issues like schizophrenia and stuff, like, we don’t even know where she’s at because she’s like, you know. . .going through her thing, but, like, it is a generational strength that I think I have, you know? That is still backing me up here.

Tiffany’s counternarrative locates her experiences with disability intergenerationally, and recognized her own reslilience as a generational strength that had been passed down to her. Her counternarrative also highlights the ways in which dis/ability can be generational and collective rather than individual. This aligns with Puar’s (2017) work on debility and Schalk’s (2018) discussion of crip theory, in which she explains, “People of color and the poor are more likely to have experiences on the borders or outside of able-bodiedness or able-mindedness due to violence and failures of society to provide access to affordable, quality insurance, housing, and medical care” (p. 10). By locating her experience as a generational strength, Tiffany resisted individualistic notions of dis/ability and pathologization.

Susana, a Filipina student with major depressive disorder and general anxiety disorder, recognized the ways in which settler colonialism and violence impacted her and her family’s experiences navigating mental health. In other words, students recognized the ways in which race and ability were linked because of violence from the state or nation state.

But our grandmother, has also experienced lots of trauma. So, in the Philippines it’s very common to know that a lot of wives are military wives. You have a lot of American soldiers coming to the Philippines, even today, to find a wife. And so, in my grandmother’s time, I think she was in her preteens, her family had to sell her for sexual services to pay debts off their house, or to get food on the table. And so, from a very young age she was sexually abused and things like that, and whatnot. So, I think that really affected my grandmother’s upbringing and mental health. Absolutely, in that time, there was no mental health back there, access. So, I think when my grandmother finally started having children of her own, she was never able to cope with any of that trauma, and she reflected that onto her kids. . .. But it was just—I mean, you look back at it, and you try to imagine being in her shoes. It’s like, what could you do? Right? So, I think there’s just this generation of trauma that’s just gotta start somewhere. And it’s just kinda becomes part of your family story. And so, when it comes to me and my sister today, you know, and with our mom—our mom is also now the second one coming in line with having the trauma she received as a child and knowing what her mom went through. Now it’s gone back to us, you know like those habits, that cycle coming in again.

Susana’s counternarrative, like Tiffany’s, recognizes the cyclical nature of trauma and its relationship to white supremacy and settler colonialism. Their counternarratives reveal the ways in which students understood their lived experiences in relation to race and ability in ways that were counter to institutionalized racist ableist discourses. DisCrit pushes us to recognize resistance in all its forms (Annamma et al., 2013). Students in the study disrupted and resisted racist ableism by positioning themselves as knowledge-holders, which I argue are critical race-disabled epistemologies that allowed students to resist and disrupt racist ableism and recognize Black and Brown students who identify as or have been labeled with dis/abilities as knowledge-holders.